Broken Life is an atmospheric, fully voiced Point-and-Click Adventure set in a world torn by war. At the heart of this story is Leo, a former soldier returning to his recently liberated hometown to uncover the fate of his family.

As a solo indie developer from Ukraine, I’ve drawn from my own experiences of living through war to create this game.

Release on Early Access was made on April 30, 2025. What to say?

**Short:** I'm very happy of reaching milestone after two years of development

**Long:** BROKEN LIFE is a very tough game to sell. It is a point-and-click adventure, war themed, depressive. But I had to make this game to make this game for three reasons:

1) game creation is a part of my therapy. There is a war in my country. Almost eveday we are under air attacks (drones, missiles etc.). A lot of good people died, including those who I know by myself. There is a lot of pain, grief and anger sitting in me. So I found a way to express those feelings in my game.

2) share pain. A lot of people in Ukraine struggle of war. This game brings hope to them as the main theme is "end of war and de-occupation of our land

3) spread a word over the world. This game is my manifest and I want people all over the world to play it to understanfd our feelings

Development: it took two years for me to make first chapter of three planned. One hour gameplay, tons of puzzles, deep plot. It's kinda suicide as I did know that game won't sell good on start. But I still wanted to make it. 

**Engine:** Clickteam Fusion 2.5+. Perfect engine for me wih their visual coding system. I am a creator, not a programmer. So well, it actually kinda good for 2d projects. And the most nice thing is - pay once and forget. Pretty expensive, but it worth it.

**Marketing:** I didn't make a lot of marketing because I hate it. But I did some of it. What works nice:

\- articles in media. I have sent press releases to game media and news media mostly in Ukraine

\- posts on Telegram in game channels

\- posts on reddit subs

What doesn't work:

\- Twitter. It shadowbans me because I use my account to provide my position on russian-Ukranian war and Elon Musk is an a... (you know). So i deleted it.

What I din't do but it should work if I had desire to do this:

\- regular posting

\- reels

**Wishlists:** before release it was 2400+ wishlist which I have gathered mostly because of reddit, steam next fest, steam Ukranian fest and articles on media when demo was released. For 10 days after release I have gathered additional 645 wishlists (-83 deletions)

**Sales:** 294 copies. Half of them - from Ukraine. Local marketing works.

**WHAT I DID WHAT ALMOST NOONE DOES:** I have localized my game on 17 languages using DeepL. As a non-English developer and gamer I understand how much it means when you can play game on your own language. As a result - I have sales (and reviews) from Germany (3rd place) China (4th place), Japan (6th place), Taiwan (7th place) etc. In future plans all 17 languages will also attempt ElevenLabs AI dubbing.

**Position:** game doesn't support russian languagge and is banned to sell in russia. No money offers will change my mind. NEVER.

**Plans:** gather feedback, wishlists, finish second and third chapter by the end of the year.

**I will be glad to receive a feedback.**

[**https://store.steampowered.com/app/2551300/BROKEN\_LIFE**](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2551300/BROKEN_LIFE)

My first game Broken Life released on Early Access. Postmortem and feedback request